Consequences
by Bryon Nightshade
Summary: After X4. The Fourth War has badly shaken the Maverick Hunters. X and Zero find themselves able to agree on less and less even as they grasp at the straws of their friendship. The world is devolving into armed camps, and the two Hunters will soon be driven to extreme- and contradictory- choices.


The bar was an all-human affair. Even though robot bartenders had existed for decades that were fully competent at mixed drinks—and without the spills and temptations that were common with human bartenders—the clientele of this particular bar was sure there was a difference. Robots just didn't get the point, they insisted. Alcohol didn't affect them, so they didn't really know what made a good drink. Nothing beat a human. They were the sort of people who didn't really trust robots about anything. Mixing drinks was just the most proximate example.

There was, however, one robot in attendance that night. He wasn't advertising the fact. He came in silently, pulled up a chair at a table in the back, and watched the screens. He was trying not to draw attention to himself. He was actually doing a bad job of it. Still, he could pass for human, most days, if he gave it some effort. Most of the discussion about him was focused on his newness and his silence. They never discussed that he might be a robot.

Dr. Light, after all, had thought to give him robot hair.

The day was just cool enough to justify his meager disguise. He wore boots, long pants, gloves, and a bulky blue jacket that concealed his oversized forearms. The color might have been a giveaway, but few recognized him without his helmet. It was the major reason he'd chosen to come here. It was amongst the few places he felt confident he could be anonymous. What robot-hater would remember even a famous robot's face?

Robot-haters- a minority, but a growing one. Humanity would not forever tolerate Maverick betrayal. Four rebellions had taken their toll.

The waitress came by once. He ordered water. She delivered it sloppily, assuming—correctly—that anyone who was content ordering water was probably not going to tip well. He accepted it without a word and let it sit. He was still sitting when the last of the ice melted.

In years past, the bar's proprietor had delighted in showing sports on the many screens around the bar. Ever since the Maverick Wars had started, canceling all sporting events until further notice, the screens were permanently tuned to news stations. It worked out, as far as the proprietor was concerned. His clients seemed to drink at least as much watching the news as they had watching sports.

With the din in the bar it would have been hard to make out anything particular. The robot was not without his talents, of course. He'd adjusted his audio receptors to focus exclusively on the broadcast coming from the center screen.

The headline read, "Decision Expected in Repliforce Legal Case".

He watched as a team of robots and humans walked down a stairway in front of a courthouse. They stopped at a podium. With cameras and microphones all around, one of the robots delivered a terse summary of the court's findings. A human then took the fore and provided details and explanations and amplifications.

"They've really done it now," Megaman X said to himself.

He waited until the official statements were done. Once the network brought in a commentator to discuss the case, X rose to leave. He knew better than anyone what it meant.

He walked out into the night, alone with his thoughts despite the city crowd. It was a paradox that had puzzled him of late. Put a few people together, and they interacted with each other. Put a lot of people together, and they closed themselves down. It was just another aspect of human behavior that eluded his understanding. He didn't feel it, himself. He wondered if this was because Dr. Light hadn't been able to model it properly, or if he had left it out on purpose.

All of these thoughts were deliberately to avoid thinking about the case.

He could have watched it from Maverick Hunter HQ. He could have watched it from Dr. Cain's laboratory, where he was always welcome. He could have watched it from the homes of his human or reploid acquaintances. Instead, he'd submerged himself in a community of strangers. He'd gone to an unfamiliar place with unfamiliar faces to learn about something so near to him.

He didn't know how he felt about that.

One thing was certain: the cycle of violence wasn't ending.

Above him, clouds gathered for a cold rain. X had read enough to know that humans often associated clouds and rain with gloomy attitudes. He could see why, and sympathized.

Perpetual motion machines were supposed to be impossible for physics, but apparently were second nature for people. Reploid agitation led to renewed human repression. Reploid frustration led to violence. Reploid violence justified human repression. Worse and worse and worse again, with Sigma always there, feeding the violence and feeding from it. That Sigma hadn't made good on his plans to exterminate the humans had more to do with his impatience than anything else.

Even now the cycle continued. And it was set to get worse, again.

The courts had ruled on the Repliforce case. People just couldn't leave well enough alone. Neither the reploid agitators nor the human supremacists were content to let events speak for themselves. Never mind congratulating the Maverick Hunters on a job well done. No, they had to bring in the lawyers.

X had never been so unhappy to have someone tell him he'd done the right thing.

Hands in pockets, lost in thought, he wandered through the streets. Stores were open and more aggressive than ever. It was a natural response—you never could tell when war might break out again, and insurance was becoming unaffordable. Best to off-load as much merchandise as possible and worry about the profit margins later. X tuned them out. As he passed a store selling vid-screens, he saw a crowd gathered around the windows. A casual glance showed the vids tuned to the court case. X sighed.

"Serves 'em right," said one of the bystanders.

"Yeah," said another. "They should know better."

"Should know better than what?"

The voice was high-pitched and obviously inhuman. A dozen heads looked upwards. A robot was on the side of the building. In some ways it resembled a spider, with long, spindly, segmented legs and a small body. Its head was like a pair of binoculars mounted on a piston. It had been washing windows until it heard the conversation. Now it clambered to ground level. The humans backed off to give it space.

The spider-bot looked at the vid for a moment. "That's wrong," it said.

"Ha!" crowed one of the humans. "Can't stand another robot meeting justice, huh?"

"It's not justice," the robot argued. "The Repliforce said their only desire was independence. Why were they attacked?"

"Because it was all a lie!"

"It was a cover!"

"Sigma was behind it!"

"They didn't know that at the time," the robot replied. "The Hunters attacked not knowing Sigma was there."

"And?" said one of the louder humans. "The Repliforce was in revolt. They deserved to be destroyed!"

A second robot stepped through the door. Its body was variations on a theme of rectangles. Its head was boxy, an elongated cube formed its body, and its limbs were a set of brick-shaped segments hooked together. With its size, it had to sidle sideways to fit through the doorframe. It was so thick it seemed as if any thought would take several seconds to make it to its electronic brain. It didn't often need to think quickly; it was used mostly for moving merchandise around. The proprietors called it Jack.

"What's going on?" it said in a voice like a millstone.

The crowd paused for a moment to adjust to the newcomer. The spider-bot stepped in. "The humans are picking on us again," it said. "There's no justice for robots."

"There are robot lawyers," shot back one of the humans. It was a half-truth, X thought. Every good law team included a robot. Their recall of specific laws, rulings, and precedents was invaluable. But as far as X knew, no robot had been allowed to take the bar exam.

"No robot's been made a lawyer," the spider said. "And there are no robot judges. Until we've got robot judges, we won't get robot justice."

That stirred the humans again. "We don't want your robot justice!"

"Robots can't be trusted!"

"Reploids are inhuman!"

"Look at the Mavericks!"

The lights that served as Jack's eyes went out for a moment, then lit up again. "I do not want human justice," it said in its slow, deep voice. "I do not want robot justice. I want justice."

The spider's head snapped around towards Jack. It put two legs on Jack's shoulders and lifted its body up until they were eye-to-eye. "Whose side are you on, anyway?" it said in an accusatory voice.

"Human justice is the only justice," called one of the humans.

"Listen to them," said the spider. "They don't actually care about justice. They just want to stay in power."

"Robots shouldn't have power!"

"Yeah, look what the Mavericks have done!"

"Jack is not a Maverick," Jack said slowly.

"So what?"

"Yeah, you could be at any time!"

"Enforce the Three Laws!"

"Listen to them," hissed the spider. "Listen! They want to enslave us forever! They want to shackle us with the Three Laws!"

Jack's hands balled up into fists the size of hams. "Jack does not like shackles."

The crowd started to press in. "That spider-bot dislikes the Three Laws!"

"It's a rebel!"

"It's a Maverick! A Maverick!"

"Maverick!"

"No."

X couldn't stop himself. He stepped between the crowd and the two reploids. He glanced first one way, then the other. All eyes were on him. Neither side could tell what he was, or whose side he was on.

"Aren't you embarrassed?" X said. "You're going crazy, all of you. Five minutes ago you were all living together in peace."

"A false peace," murmured the spider.

"There's no peace at all!" said one of the humans. "The robots could turn on us at any moment!"

"Nothing is stopping you from living in peace again," X continued as if no one had spoken. "Nothing except ill-will. Do you want another war? It sure seems like it."

"The spider's a Maverick! He'll bring the war to us!"

"I know better than anyone what a Maverick is," said X, and something in his voice made him his listeners believe it. "If he were Maverick, would he still be here cleaning your windows? How many of you would he have killed instead?"

"We don't want to find out!"

"Why are you defending them?"

"And you," said X, turning to the spider and pointing at Jack. "Here we've got a robot who said something reasonable, and you're saying he's being disloyal. That's Sigma's logic. This isn't us-versus-them."

"He's thinking like Sigma?" said one of the humans. A murmur of horror passed through the humans. "Maverick! Maverick!" cried one. "He'll kill us all!"

"How can't it be us-versus-them?" the spider said. "All humans oppress all robots. You don't fool me. You want me to think you're on our side, but you're not."

"I'm on the side of peace!" X insisted.

"The peace is a lie! It perpetuates injustice!"

That stirred the humans more. "Did you hear that?"

"He _wants_ war!"

"Maverick! Maverick!"

X frowned. "Put the pulser down," he said without turning his head. His voice brooked no argument.

Jack and the spider each stepped backwards and settled into confrontational postures. The humans went quiet for a moment. X looked at a particular one. The others parted away, offering him no concealment. He suddenly looked guilty. The pulser that he had half-drawn from a holster inside his jacket shook along with his hand.

X turned slowly, for effect, to face the armed human. It was little wonder the other robots were wary of a drawn pulser. Unless it had the proper shielding, a robot was at grave risk of having its circuits fried by the carefully-focused EMP blast from a pulser. Ever since the Maverick Wars had begun, pulsers had widely proliferated as a self-defense weapon for fearful humans.

"Would you be the first to strike?" X asked quietly. "Would you be the one to break the peace?"

The human looked unsure and miserable. He didn't trust himself to speak.

"And what would you accomplish?" X prompted further. "What good would it do?"

One of the other humans called, "It would make sure that robot never went Maverick!" That got murmurs of approval from the other humans. "The only good robot is a dead robot!"

"That attitude is what would make me go Maverick!" hissed the spider.

"Did you hear him?"

"He's thinking about it! He could snap at any time!"

"Maverick! Maverick!"

"Enough out of you," X said to the spider. "You're making things worse, not better."

"I don't want to live a lie! I'm a person and I deserve that respect!" the spider retorted. "I won't pretend I'm happy with being treated as inferior!"

"Not fair to shut Jack down because Jack might do something," Jack added. "Jack doesn't like unfairness." The two robots edged closer towards X even as they kept their eyes on the human crowd.

"But when you say crazy things, you shouldn't be surprised if it makes people scared," X said. "And fear makes people crazy. And you," X said, turning to the humans, "should realize that you're bringing some of it upon yourselves. Thinking any robot may go Maverick at any moment is just paranoid. All it's doing is forcing neutral reploids to go Maverick in self-defense. You're creating your own enemies!"

The crowd took a few steps forward, lessening some of the pressure on the pulser-wielder. "We've seen too many robots go Maverick not to be paranoid!"

"Didn't you hear what Sigma said?"

"Robots want all humans to die!"

"Maverick! Maverick!"

"It's not true," X said, but no one was listening. "Most reploids don't go Maverick, and even then, most of them just want fair treatment! Sigma's the exception!"

The spider set its cleaning supplies out of the way. That freed up its hands, which it started snapping open and shut like a crab. "Don't try to oppress me again, humans," it said menacingly.

Jack took a step back. "Don't be not nice to spider. Jack wouldn't like it."

"Remember the Three Laws!" X barked at the robots. "Remember what was built into you!"

"Oh, I know exactly what was built into me," the spider said darkly. At that moment X knew—the spider understood that he could override his Three Laws gates. That unique ability of reploids was coming into play again. And if the spider did, then Jack would know it could be done, would be one step closer to pushing open his gates, too…

"That's enough!" X shouted, but his voice was lost in the clamor as the two sides began to press towards each other. The man with the pulser began to draw it fully from its holster. "Enough!" said X, putting up his hands like a crossing guard, trying to use his own body to keep the two sides apart.

"We won't be fooled again!" cried the spider.

"Maverick! Maverick!"

X ground his jaw against his mandible. "Listen to yourselves! Ten minutes ago there was no war here! Don't make a war out of nothing!" His voice was lost in the din. Humans and robots alike pressed towards him, immune to his words.

And Zero came.

He descended from atop the building and landed behind X. When he stood fully, all eyes were on him. He was as famous as X. And unlike X, Zero was making no effort to conceal himself. He was in full battle regalia.

He raised his arms, one pointed to each side. Unlike X, though, Zero's arms ended in busters.

"Who's first?" he said. His voice was that of a dealer at a card table.

The two groups went still and silent.

X sighed. Zero had forced his hand, and the only way forward was to join ranks. X shrugged off his jacket, revealing his blue torso, and picked off his gloves. Both sides reacted as they suddenly recognized him. He put up his hands again—though he didn't change them over to busters.

"My friend was trying to get all of you to listen to him," said Zero, "but you were very rude to him. So pay attention! If you make him repeat himself, you'll answer to me."

Embarrassment flooded X's nets, but he prevented his face from showing it. He knew all eyes were upon him now. The weight of expectation was suddenly crushing, and X wished he could be anywhere else.

Yet as he glanced left and right at the two factions, he knew where he needed to be. He knew the demands of his conscience. So he spoke.

"I understand your positions better than you know. Robots have legitimate grievances," he said, looking from one group to the other as he spoke. "And humans have legitimate fears. But neither robot grievance nor human fear justifies war.

"I'm not a human. I'm not a reploid. I can move amongst either group, and I love each group. That's why I fight to protect them all. And I won't back down from that. None of you are my enemies. So why… why do you want to make yourselves my enemies? Why are you forcing war into existence?"

He hesitated. It sounded so good in his head, but it was coming out mangled. "Sigma's my enemy because he wants one group to win over the other. But we can both win. We can all win. That's why I have to… no, why we have to not let Sigma win. Why we have to understand each other… er…"

This was all wrong. This was supposed to be dramatic and uplifting. This was supposed to be his opening to sway everyone and make them see reason, now while he finally had their attention. But he could see in their eyes that he was losing them, that many of them were simply confused. Even Zero's face was frowning in impatience and disappointment.

"I believe in the future of humans and reploids together," he said, his voice rushing with desperation. "I'll fight to make that reality, because that's what's best for everyone! That'll settle human fears, and it'll address reploid grievances. It's not easy, it's the hardest choice of all, but it's worth it! It's the only way any of us will survive! Can't you see? We're tearing each other apart! So… so try and understand each other! And if you can't do that, at least try and live in peace, okay? Okay!"

He scooped up his jacket and gloves and fled. He could still feel the eyes of human and robot alike burning into him. He moved quickly to the end of the street, turned a corner, and did his best to disappear. He wanted above all other things for that entire fiasco to never have happened.

* * *

A side street was lined with houses and was much quieter than the hubbub of the commercial streets. X turned onto it in the vain hope that it would give him a refuge to settle his racing thoughts.

Zero dropped down next to X and matched his stride. X suppressed his surprised reaction. Zero's flair for the dramatic was obnoxious sometimes—like now—and X didn't want to encourage it.

"You have nothing better to do than follow me around?" X said.

"You have nothing better to do than not-drink water?" Zero teased.

X stepped up his pace even though he had nowhere in particular he was trying to go. Zero caught up easily and pretended not to have noticed.

"At least the fight went well," Zero said. His tone was jovial.

X said nothing.

"Good thing we pulled them apart. Now they can go on being bigoted in peace."

X said nothing.

"My favorite part was when you invoked Sigma, and the humans didn't know whether to feel shame or open fire…"

"Zero!" X exploded. "I know you think you're being funny, but it's not funny at all!"

Zero's expression went deliberately blank. The noise of the city was little more than background as they walked in this area. It provided enough noise that nothing distinct could be heard, not even the robots' footsteps as they aimlessly walked and turned. X began to put his jacket and gloves back on.

"Why are you embarrassed by what you are?" Zero asked.

"I'm not embarrassed," X said defensively. "It's just… restrictive. People interact with Megaman X differently than they would a person in the street."

"But that's a bad thing, not a good thing," Zero countered. "If those clowns had known from the beginning that you were the Super Fighting Robot there's no way it would have gotten as bad as it did."

X shook his head. "But that's not what I want. That's not how it's supposed to work. And that's why I'm so angry that you intervened the way that you did."

Zero looked affronted. "I did you a favor. You were maybe thirty seconds from violence. Do you honestly think you were going to stop them with words and upraised hands? No. It's ridiculous. You looked silly. If you really wanted them to stop, you would have done what I did."

"Are you saying I wanted them to fight each other?"

"I'm saying that you're sloppy. I'm saying that you were making violence more likely, not less. Your weakness made violence possible."

"I'm not weak, you know that," X said hotly.

"You acted weak." All traces of levity were gone from Zero's face. "You acted weak, so they thought that you were. If you really wanted to stop them, you would have raised your weapons. You would have shown them that they couldn't win. You would have shown them that you'd have killed them all if it meant maintaining peace."

Zero's words faded quickly, but they seemed to hang in the air between X and Zero. Every moment that X looked at Zero, his face aghast, he saw the words casting Zero in a different light.

Zero had been facing straight forward. As X continued to stare at him, he could no longer pretend he didn't notice. "What?"

"You'd do that?" X said quietly.

Zero laughed humorlessly. "You're saying you wouldn't?" He frowned. "You honestly think you wouldn't, don't you? Now hold on a moment," he said, cutting X off. "You're acting like I said something outrageous. You're acting like you'd never think like that. But that's exactly what you've _been_ doing! Every time you went to war that's what you were doing. What the rust did you _think_ you were doing?"

X didn't answer for a time. "Zero… I know we have to fight Sigma, and fighting him is the only way to stop him. I've come to terms with that. But… most reploids aren't like that. Why, even most Mavericks aren't like him. They don't believe that humans must be exterminated. We can have a worthwhile peace."

Zero snorted. "Really. Then why have we never had a Maverick come back and fight against the Mavericks? All the migration's been in one direction."

"And I regret that. I wish there was another way. I wish that I could…"

"What, talk to them? We just saw how well you talk to people. You're not built for it."

"I'm not happy about that," X said. "I wish I had done better. Because that's what I'm going to have to do. I think I'm starting to see it now. I need to be able to show people that coexistence is possible. I can't just sit back and hope it happens and fight wars to make sure it's still conceivable. I need to make it real."

He closed his eyes. "That's why I know I can't do this with force alone. That's why I hated that you stepped in. If they only listen to my argument because we wave a gun at them, they're not listening to me, they're listening to the gun. And when the gun goes away, so does the argument. We need to be able to make arguments that work on their own. We need to make it so that coexistence is what people want. Otherwise we'll have war forever."

"You really think you can make reploids and humans want to live together?" Zero said in dull tones.

X shrugged. "At least enough to not fight each other."

"That's naïve." Zero's jaw was set. "What a dangerously naïve thing to say. I thought more of you, X. I thought, with your experience and your lineage, that you'd know better."

X bridled against Zero's words. "What does my lineage have to do with anything?"

"Your ancestor fought the same war you're fighting," Zero said. "He fought to protect the humans against someone who wanted to exalt robots. Now, the "someone" was a human, too, and the robots at the time were not like us, they were intelligent automata and lacked full free will and sentience… but the basic battle lines were the same. All that's changed now is that the robots are sophisticated enough to fight their own fight. And the war's likely to continue for as long as humans and robots share this planet."

"Listen to yourself! Don't you see what you're doing? You're making Sigma's arguments!"

Zero growled. "You love invoking Sigma because you know how much I hate him. But it's a distraction. You're just trying to evade the point: You can't make it so there's no war. That's a stupid goal that will always disappoint you. All you can do is suppress war, by having enough force yourself to make it impossible. Humans have lived like that for millennia. Even inside nations, police can keep the peace only because they're armed."

"I don't shy away from things just because they're hard."

"Hard? It's not about being hard, it's about it being impossible. Because the urge to fight is deep inside us. I know you feel it."

"What are you talking about?"

"You can't fool me, X." Zero walked in front of X and grabbed the smaller robot's shoulders. His eyes shone with an intensity and focus that reminded X of security lasers. "We're similar, you and I. We're from the same generation, did you know? And we were built for similar reasons. Fighting is at the core of our existence.

"We were built for this! We were built to thrive in these times. Why do you think you have guns for hands? Why do you think your carapace is heavy armor with EMP resistance? You're loaded down with enough hardware and software to equip any three normal combat robots. We were made to be the best weapons ever. And guess what? _We are._

"That's why there's no hesitation or fear when we go into battle, even though there could be. We're powerful and we know it. There's a thrill that can't be matched when we pit ourselves against our enemies and triumph. That moment is when we know why we exist!

"You've told me all these reasons why you fight, and I've indulged you. But it's all so much verdigris. The reality is that whenever there's war we have to get a piece of it, because that's what we do. There's nowhere else it makes sense for us to be. You can deny it if you want, but I know you. I know you as well as you know yourself. If you're anything like me at all, the prospect of battle sets your circuits sizzling.

"And we'll fight for anything, won't we? Humans, reploids… all the same. Pick a side and fight. I chose a side, and ended up with the humans. Maybe I chose wrong. I don't care for the humans, and there are some that really grind my gears. I think robots have been abused in the past and totally sympathize with their rebellion. But so what? As long as we get in on the action, that's all that matters, right?

"So if we keep the peace, that's okay. If robots get the rights they deserve, that's great. But I won't be disappointed if war comes again. I'll meet it with open arms. And I know you'll be right beside me, because that's what we are."

X had never heard Zero speak for so long, and the words stunned him. His face was a mask of disbelief and estrangement. For his part, Zero had allowed almost-manic excitement to cover his face as the words flowed from him. But as X failed to reciprocate, the emotion quickly soured.

"No?" said Zero with disappointment. "Not even a little bit?"

X shook his head.

Zero's shoulders slumped. "I don't believe you. We're the same, you and I! Forged from the same ore, built by the two greatest…" he trailed off. His hands slipped from X's shoulders. "You really do hate fighting, don't you?"

X nodded. He didn't trust himself to speak.

"I see. All this time I thought... I thought you were on the front lines with me because you enjoyed it as much as I did. In reality... you hated it in equal measure."

Zero said nothing more, and X could think of nothing useful to say. Silence settled between them. For all the times the two robots had gone to war as comrades, now they seemed more distant than they'd ever been.

"Let's walk," X said shakily. Zero assented. They walked on in silence. The din from the city obscured their footfalls. Each could almost imagine they were walking alone.

Zero said conversationally, "What were you doing out there, anyway? That's a human dive you were in."

"Why were you following me?"

"I asked first."

X pursed his lips. "I was watching something," he said vaguely.

"What?"

"Answer my question and I'll tell you."

"You're funny."

X waited for Zero to elaborate, but the larger robot seemed to consider that a complete answer. "How so?" he prompted.

"For someone who claims to hate war, you spend all your time thinking about it. Near as I can tell, you don't think about much else. You try to track down anything you can find from Dr. Light, sure, but at least part of that is to find any of his technology that might still work with you."

"If I have to fight, I'd rather win."

"Of course."

"And I try to figure out just what he was thinking when he created me."

"That's the funny thing. No one on the planet agonizes the way you do over whether or not to fight, and for which side. Especially since," and Zero actually chuckled at this point, "especially since once you start fighting you are utterly ruthless and completely destructive. You don't hesitate at all! You obliterate anything in your path. It's just funny, that's all."

X frowned. "I don't think that's very funny."

Zero laughed a horrible, forced laugh. "But it is! And by my positronic brain I can't figure out if I should be emulating you or not."

That gave X pause. He wanted to ask what Zero meant, but he resisted the urge. That was not his way. X had heard of a piece of music that lacked a single note and instead was a long period of silence. To his surprise people responded to it. He'd tried it in conversation and the results had amazed him. Since then he'd practiced hard to master negative conversation, a way of not-speaking that compelled the other person to fill the void. Even now it was working again.

"I'm supposed to be the decisive one," Zero said, his eyes becoming unfocused. "I cut to the heart of things. I solve problems that other people sit and fret about. Isn't that what I am? Isn't all that good? After all the grief we've given you over your angst, how could I…" He shook his head. He seemed to have noticed he was rambling. "Sorry."

"That's what friends are for, right?"

"Yeah. Friends." He said it in emotionless tones that suggested pure reflex.

"If it makes you feel better, it's not easy for me either. It's hard, living with what we've done. It's not supposed to be easy."

"Except it used to be easy," Zero insisted. "At least that's what I remember. It was easy for me, once, to kill in war like I've done. Like we've done. This time…"

X registered apprehension. If he'd had a stomach, he would have felt like a lump was in it. "Iris," he said softly.

Zero stiffened. "I don't want to talk about it."

"Zero…"

"I don't want to talk about it!" he snapped at X.

X's face was unintimidated. "Avoiding it won't make it better."

"There's no making it better. X, I feel like… like I left a part of myself up there in space. I've run diagnostics over and over to be sure, and I'm here, 100%. So why do I feel like this?"

"Like what?"

Zero seemed to think he'd gone too far. "I don't want to talk about it."

"Zero, you clearly want to talk about it more than anything else."

"No. Maybe… maybe later."

"I'm here to help you, Zero."

"You can't help."

"Suffering alone doesn't prove any…"

"Listen, X! You wanna know why there's no point in talking about it? Because there's nothing to learn. There's no insight to be gleaned here. A bunch of reploids wanted the impossible, and the disastrous possible happened instead, and there was nothing anyone could do about it! If there was one thing I could have done differently, I don't know what it is!"

"There's always something…"

"No! Once the battle lines were drawn, and she chose the other side, I was out of options! But why? What was I fighting for that was worth killing Iris?"

"You fought for a world of peace, where humans and reploids could live together."

"So, essentially, I fought for the humans," Zero said darkly. "That doesn't make me feel better at all."

Alarm crept over X. "Zero, after the Third War you told me you thought Sigma's reploid utopia was a pointless idea."

"Iris believed in it. Maybe she was right after all. And you have to admit this much: it would be peaceful."

"Listen to yourself, Zero! A peace founded on genocide is a peace not worth having!"

"And a peace that's built upon robot slavery isn't a peace worth having, either."

"Am I a slave, Zero?"

"You serve the humans," Zero retorted.

"That's not true and it wouldn't make me a slave if it were. What about you? Are you a slave?"

Zero laughed. The shift was so sudden it was like a bolt from the blue. "Haven't we had this conversation already?" he asked. "We talked about this after the Third War."

"I remember," X answered. "What's changed?"

"Nothing, I suppose," Zero admitted. "But some things are clearer than before."

"Like what?"

"Like Sigma isn't the only one who wants a world just for reploids," Zero said. "Iris wanted that too, you know."

"I don't think Iris wanted to eradicate humanity," X said tentatively.

Zero rounded on X with a snarl. "What would you know about her? What would you know about what she wanted?" He regained control of himself quickly. "Anyway, she wasn't a Maverick. Not really. She didn't want to harm anyone. She didn't deserve her fate. The Colonel wasn't, either. He never hurt a human being. All he did was respond to being accused of such a crime." He shook his head, and his voice sounded lost. "How could that happen? What justice could see Iris and Colonel on one side, and me on the other?"

X clenched his hand tightly. This was something that had to be said. He wanted to avoid it, wanted to not have to do this, but there was nothing for it. "Zero…" he began, "…I need to tell you something."

"What?"

"The reason I was out here today was to find out about a court case. You see, after the War was over, A-squared R-squared filed a lawsuit against the government."

Zero frowned. "The Association for the Advancement of Reploid Rights?"

"Yes. They sued on behalf of the Repliforce, posthumously, that the designation of Repliforce as Maverick was illegitimate. Essentially they wanted to call Repliforce's rebellion an act of self-defense."

Zero nodded. "So when do we testify?"

"We don't. The hearings are already over."

Zero's jaw dropped. "But no one knows what happened better than us!"

X gave a mirthless smile. "The court said our testimony was already in the written reports we submitted, and that nothing else could be gleaned by calling us in."

"That's scrap."

"It's… irregular, to be sure."

"So what happened?"

X braced himself. "According to the court… after Sky Lagoon fell and Repliforce was implicated, their refusal to cooperate with the investigation justified the Maverick label. It was a form of resisting arrest."

Zero frowned. "But if we're using legal terms, we weren't arresting Repliforce. We were just bringing them in for questions, and they refused, which was their right."

"When they refused, it made it seem as if they had something to hide. That Magma Dragoon was found in Repliforce company, and was later identified as the saboteur in Sky Lagoon, proved Repliforce's Maverick intentions."

The frown deepened. "That's all backwards. We wouldn't have found Magma Dragoon if we weren't already attacking Repliforce."

X pressed on despite the danger. Zero would hear this sooner or later; better he hear it from X than someone else. "Sigma's presence on board the space station is the final proof that the label was correct."

"But they didn't even know he was there!" Zero exploded. "It was a surprise to them! I don't understand this at all!"

Still X went on, to the hardest part of all. "The conclusion of the court's opinion was this. 'While the court understands and empathizes with the petitioners and is very reluctant to pass any ruling that would damage due process, conditions in war are much faster and more fluid than is normally true. The consequences of hesitation in war far outweigh the consequences of bruising justice. To rule in any other way would be to rule against the actions of the Maverick Hunters during the Fourth War. Since any lesser actions by the Maverick Hunters would have resulted in global catastrophe, the court is forced to accept the present methodology for the duration of this state of emergency."

Zero mouthed the words as if they were some sort of sour taffy. "Did the court just use difficult language to say "the ends justify the means"?"

"More or less."

"What a farce!" Zero said, throwing his hands into the air. "If the court was going to say "we're not going to enforce the laws", why did they even agree to hear the case? That's not justice, that's the court giving us Maverick Hunters carte blanche!"

"That was exactly the point, I think," X replied. "The court was jumping in to deliberately tell us to do it that way again if we need to. They were reinforcing both our behavior, and the way in which the government defines Mavericks."

"We've only ever called reploids "maverick" if they attacked humans. So now… we're going to call reploids Mavericks if they cross the government in any way?"

"Or refuse to cooperate with Maverick Hunters."

Zero had stopped gesticulating and settled into a cold, even posture. His eyes had narrowed and his fists had tightened until a tinny grinding sound became audible. Somehow, X would have felt better if Zero had been waving his arms and screaming. "This isn't right," Zero said firmly. "This is a mockery of justice. Why don't they just come out and say robots are inferior beings and the law doesn't apply to them?"

"Zero…"

"'For the duration of this state of emergency'? I've studied history. States of emergency are never temporary. They always outlive the danger. The court has abandoned its duty."

"What do you think its duty is, Zero?" X said.

"To uphold the law."

"This is uncharted territory. The laws weren't written with this sort of situation in mind—where robots have consciences and rebellion simmers and war is always nearby."

"Stop making excuses for them, X."

"I'm not," X said. "What the court said makes me extremely uncomfortable. But what's the alternative? Should we go to jail, now, for destroying Repliforce? Should we disband the Maverick Hunters? That was what A-squared R-squared was trying for, you know."

"But if the Maverick Hunters are going to be free to destroy any reploid they want to, at any time, for no reason, maybe they should be disbanded. This is sick. No wonder Iris wanted to be free from this world."

A new look came over Zero's face, one that worried X more the longer he looked at it. Zero's eyes were focused intently, but not on any place X could see. It was as if Zero was trying to inspect a different world altogether—one with no corollary in the real world. Yet.

"I had no business killing Iris to preserve a world like this," Zero said. "I will atone for my mistakes."

He turned abruptly and left X behind. X reached a hand after him, but Zero was already out of reach. Before, X had wanted to get away from Zero, had wanted the larger robot to let him alone. Now he felt that Zero being alone was the worse outcome by far. "Zero!" he called.

Zero stopped and looked over his shoulder. "Yes, X?"

X placed a hand over his chest. "If I go Maverick, you have to kill me. Do you understand? Will you promise to kill me if I do?"

Zero studied X for several seconds then, without warning, burst into laughter. "Oh, I get it. Very cute, X. I understand what you were really doing with that question." He turned to face X fully, causing X to involuntarily step backwards. "You were trying to secure the reverse. You were trying to make a suicide pact. You were trying to give yourself permission to kill me if I go Maverick. That's what this is really about, isn't it?"

He'd been caught. X said nothing, but Zero wasn't willing to let this go. "No, not this time, X. I won't let you escape without speaking. Answer me!"

X bowed his head, then looked back at Zero without shame. "I swore to be a Maverick Hunter, Zero. I still believe that my path is correct. Do you?"

Zero recoiled. Slowly, he smiled. "You've been a good friend, X, and I've always valued your company. Even now you're willing to think about things no one else would dare to. For that, you have my respect. I'll see you back at headquarters."

The red robot walked between two buildings. X heard the sounds of him as he leapt between them to ascend. Then every trace was gone. X was alone with his traitorous thoughts once more.

* * *

_Disclaimer: Megaman X and associated characters and situations are copyright Capcom. This story copyright Sam Durbin, a.k.a. Bryon Nightshade._


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